


The Adventures of Anna Berru

by Valentra



Category: N/A - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Other, own work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10024031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valentra/pseuds/Valentra
Summary: Built as an advanced spy droid with a human mind the Advanced Neurological Automaton, Anna, after being awoken is thrown into a life of adventure, battle and occasional tomfoolery.(The characters in this story are my own creation with exception to Brutus Black, he has been kindly loaned to me for the sake of insanity)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my own work :) If you would like, in the unlikely event, to write anything in relation to Anna's universe please contact me.

If humans placed importance on specific memories by instinct, it would be safe to assume the Advanced Neurological Automaton did the same and placed her final living memory, as her first. She had many memories, of course, the human brain she was gifted by her creator ensured she maintained the capacity to keep the memories out of sentimentality or necessity and her mechanical components ensured her memory was maintained in perfect condition. In a human they might deteriorate or get lost as time went by, but in her they were all crystal clear, the sounds clean and defined like a nail upon glass in a silent room, the smells sharp like the scent of nature after rainfall. And all of them in neat, orderly lines. The Professor first waking her up, all her lessons on how to be more human and the day she avenged the Professors death...

  
He had hit the emergency end charge to wake her up. It was an unusual thing for her creator to do, she knew, as she had awoken to him scolding assistants in the past for doing so, often tiredly explaining that abusing this function would whittle away at the lifespan of the power cells and eventually the droid’s overall lifespan. His German accent always tinted his speech so much more heavily during those moments, brought on by the weary annoyance at having to tell yet another person something that should be so obvious. It was this memory that now alerted her to his state, the Professor’s normally clean lab coat was stained a deep red, his breathing ragged and his normally tall frame leaning against her control panel.

  
'Professor?' She asked, her green eyes evaluating the scene before her, 'you are not well...' she finally concluded, head tilting at the Professor’s laugh and the desperation tainting it.  
'No, dear' he wheezed, 'No, I am not, I'm dying and I need you to do something for me.' His smile was pained and weak.

  
'I do not have any medical programming, Professor..."

  
'No, no,' he interrupted. 'No, I need you to fight, dear.' His breath was laboured as he sunk to floor. 'Ivan has sabotaged the other droids, the bastard, they're killing everyone... myself included it would seem,' he weakly laughed at the severity of his own situation. 'So I need you to fight your way out of here and take out as many droids as you can along the way... Don't let them get out... Don't let them kill anyone else..." Gently she placed her hand in his, aware she could break him as she felt his pulse weaken and eventually stop. She had no words of farewell for him, no eulogy to speak as she felt an unfamiliar urge to kill rise within her, like a bird beating its wings against a hard gale as it rose towards the sky. The Professor had told her of her ability to feel limited emotions; it appeared rage was amongst them as she flew from the room, a roar of anger and… something far more painful tearing from her throat.

  
The first few droids stood little chance when facing her; she took them out with little issue, aiming for their power cells. With no outer shell to guard them, they made an easy target for her but soon she was overwhelmed. Her left arm was first to suffer damage, having been ripped clean off by a droid coming upon her from a blind spot, her right eye obliterated by another with a pipe, an action causing a sound like a mix between a mirror shattering and stone fracturing as it cracked her face in the process. The final blow did not come from any enemy but from her own surroundings. There was a deafening rumble as the building around her began to collapse, random debris taking out the swarming droids before her, but as she looked up a large support beam came crashing down on her. It wasn’t so much a sound as a feeling of something bursting within her that informed her of the mechanism acting as her heart shattering. Not that a heart had ever stopped her and maybe this once, that was her curse.

  
She did not know how long she lay awake in the dark, her power slowly draining away and leaving her to the same fate as her predecessors.

  
50 Years later...

  
The sound of heavy footfalls filled the small corridor, their pace unrushed but determined as the sound of engines grew louder. A young stoker held open a large bulkhead door as the owner of the footsteps drew close. He did not acknowledge the young man as he greeted him with a 'Sir' only pausing as the young stoker called out 'All engines are nominal, Sir.'

  
'I'll be the judge of that' the tank of a man responded in a thick Russian accent before continuing further into the engine room, Stokers quickly dodging from his path as he cast his dark eyes over every dial and pressure gauge. They had learned through experience to never interfere with Brutus Black's daily inspection of the engine room, the Chief engineer made a point of keeping the engines running like a finely tuned clock and any issue that dared present itself as a threat to that would be beaten into submission by his superior skill. It was nothing personal against the Stokers, he had to be strict with them, the man had already lost his right arm to the negligence of a rookie and defied the injury by building himself an entirely new appendage. 'Close the fireboxes! Prepare for landing!' he called over the hissing and thrumming of the engines.

  
Through the noise of the Stokers running around to complete his command, Brutus paid close attention to the airship as he walked to a section of levers close to his work bench, lighting his pipe with one hand he rested the mechanical one atop a lever and waited. At the first indication of a shudder in the ship, he quickly began lowering and raising different levers, each one seeming to lessen the feel of the ship's descent. Soon the shudder lessened enough to completely vanish and he pulled up one final lever, raising his brow at the uncomfortable clanging of a pipe, turning on his heel he walked towards the bulkhead door, calling out behind him 'Get that pipe fixed!'

  
The port they had landed on was eerily quiet, it housed a large, ruined complex that was slowly being retaken by nature and Brutus felt sceptical of finding anything of real value. Years of salvaging parts for money had taught him that places in ruin were often already picked apart by others. 'Captain says the distress beacon is coming from somewhere inside, something must still be ticking over here,' he heard one of the men say to the others. 'Salvage what you can'. Brutus said nothing as he ventured forward, shouldering his giant wrench, he eyed the crumbled walls and noted a distinct lack of windows. Walking the perimeter, he paused. A large, bolted door was standing ominously ajar; he had found a way in though. Signalling to a few of the others beside him, he grasped the door with his piston arm and with little struggle pulled it open. The rusted hinges let out a long, grinding sound that echoed all around them, disturbing a few birds in the surrounding trees, as they flew away Brutus carefully stepped inside and once again surveyed his surroundings.

  
There was little to indicate what the facility had actually been used for, once white walls were stained and flaking away from the damp of the area. He had heard in the local tavern of a nearby town that the people were too afraid to come near this place, some story of secret government research and monsters killing its inhabitants on some ridiculously outlaid dark and stormy night. He remembered an old drunk boasting of daring to enter the ruin, proclaiming to have seen the face of a beautiful young woman in the dark and Brutus fought back the urge to roll his eyes at the memory of the ludicrous old drunk. Ghost stories were not a thing that could spook or frighten a man of science and he had little tolerance for superstition. Less could be said of his fellow crewmen as he listened to them whispering about the tales from behind him.

  
'Do you think that old man was telling the truth?' he heard one whisper anxiously.

  
'About the ghost? Ah, I dunno, maybe ask Brutus?' the other replied as he warily eyed the place up and down, almost as if expecting something to jump out at them.

  
Brutus slammed his giant wrench against the floor as he shouted at the top of his lungs; 'BOO! Enough talk about ghosts, get back to work!' Having had enough of their mindless chatter, he was happy to see their terrified gazes as he marched past them. Walking down the corridors Brutus quickly scanned every room he passed, some were far too damaged to warrant digging but the further into the hallways he walked, the more he began to notice distinct, dark stains on the floor and walls. Blood. A particular stain caught his attention, it wasn't sprayed, dripping or pooled like the others, but long and dragging with corresponding droplets edging and breaking the trail that he could barely to tell apart from the murky floors. In places where the blood was thin or there were only droplets, it was almost completely faded by time as the weather didn’t quite reach into the deeper parts of the complex.

  
Brutus followed the grim trail, whomever left it was desperate to get further into the compound rather than out, most likely to reach something of value. Wasn’t that always – or at least usually – the case? As he walked he came across another door, this one larger than any other he had so far encountered. “Mark I” was printed on it in big, blocky letters, the text black but faded and flaked in a few places but not enough to make the word unintelligible. It stood open enough to allow a person through though and inside the room he could see bulky machines, their complexity revealing itself even at a mere glance through the dark.

  
Entering the room, Brutus approached the most obvious contraption in sight. It appeared to be a large charging station for an unknown device but before he could get closer he spotted the clear shape of an old skeleton, sitting at a slant at the base of what looked to be the control panel for the large machine, in any other situation he would simply ignore the sight but the damaged bones caught his attention. The skeleton had the usual gnaw marks from the scavenging wildlife but many of the bones carried strange saw like gashes, others were completely crushed and scattered about the floor. Perhaps the local legends about a massacre weren't completely wrong... Just the part about monsters was completely off, of course. Load of superstition.

  
Brutus radioed in his find before he moved on. Walking through another large door he took in the scene that greeted him; it was clearly a hallway and seemed to be the epicentre of the collapse in the building, most likely the cause of the disaster would also have be found here. All around were broken pieces of what appeared to be automatons, those that were mostly intact seemed to have had their main power cells ripped out. As he inspected them for any parts that could be of value, he noticed something in the arms of a downed automaton and walked over for closer inspection. In its dead grasp was a strangely feminine arm with a more delicate look to it but still capable in structure. At first glance he had assumed it was real but reason pushed its way to the fore, stating it would either have to be damn fresh – and there wasn’t enough blood around for that – to not have rotted away yet if that was the case. With that in mind, he began to pry it from its prison. The flesh was oddly realistic in its feel but held a strange coldness to it. Freeing it with a final yank, he spotted wires sticking out from its joint; the arm clearly belonged to another, more advanced automaton. With this in mind, Brutus surveyed his surroundings once more. Ignoring the sounds of his small team behind him, he walked further into the corridor, spotting a face among the rubble. Beneath a huge steel beam and some rubble lay what appeared to be the owner of the arm. It was a female droid, the side of its face that was visible among the debris and dirt was cracked and an eye appeared to have been completely shattered in the socket. The state of the rest of the droid, the damage she had sustained – if one judged it based on the severed limb – could only be guessed at until the rubble had been cleared away but Brutus had an idea regarding the condition this thing was in.

  
'Shit!' one of the men behind him shouted 'Is that an arm!?' Brutus turned to the man and waved with aforementioned limb, blasé in the face of the other man’s rapidly growing unease and nausea, not even blinking as the man’s state reached its finale and he vomited.

  
'What the fuck is wrong with you?' Brutus spoke around his pipe, 'never seen an arm before?' He exhaled a puff of smoke as the man heaved and hacked at the sight of Brutus now scratching his back with the limb, unable to get any sound out and appearing for all the world as if he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to scream or not. 'Get me a block and tackle,' he ordered, tutting at the weak-stomached idiot while another man ran off to do his bidding.

  
As he waited Brutus began moving the rubble that would likely roll onto the droid once the beam was lifted, the more he uncovered the humanoid shape, the more he began to see the extent of work that had gone into the creation of the thing. The seams of flesh around the joints were barely visible to the human eye, wires beneath the flesh were coloured to resemble veins and even the hair on her head looked almost real if one looked beyond the dirt and other mechanical liquids staining it, most likely acquired from the other trashed automatons around the place. This one droid with its finely crafted structure and attention to detail and realism had been designed to pass for a human and, more importantly to Brutus, appeared valuable.

  
Once the workers had returned with the block and tackle the extraction of the droid was fairly simple. The two superstitious idiots, as Brutus had mentally labelled them, pulled and held the rope whilst he took on the delicate task of freeing the droid’s limbs from any remaining rubble and easing it from its resting place without having it sustain any more damage than it already had.

  
In an hour and a half Brutus found himself in possession of a repairable and likely expensive droid. Lifting the droid, Brutus hoisted it over his left shoulder like a sack, musing how it was even built to weigh similar to a human of equivalent size. An interesting amount of detail had gone into this thing’s creation, he mused as he set off back to the airship, eager to get back to the engine room and his work.  
'Prepare for take-off,' he ordered the moment he entered the engine room, ignoring the looks the Stokers were trading in regards to the droid on his shoulder. As the sounds of shovelling coal and building flames filled the chamber, Brutus placed his find on his workbench. He was in no rush to repair it. The robot could wait as far as he was concerned and the boilers needed his attention.

  
It was a week before he found himself with enough time to approach the droid and inspect the overall damage. As he slowly began removing each limb, he carefully jotted down detailed notes on its workings and even sketched out the more complex wire and tubing while taking time to also write a list of things that would need to be completely replaced. As he stared at the inventory, he came to the realisation that whilst he was perfectly able to perform the tasks, he may not have the right components. With that, Brutus moved from his workbench and with barely a glance picked up a phone on the wall. There were set phones for all departments and since Brutus knew each one by heart, he had never bothered to label them despite the complaints from his Stokers that, of course, were never delivered to his face. If they had had the courage to, they would have been given a simple 'Learn' in response. Holding the phone to his ear, he waited for an answer from the cargo hold.

  
'Aye?' came a gruff voice over the receiver.

  
'James,' Brutus greeted.

 

'Ah, Brutus, you're fully stocked up on coal so what makes you call, eh?' He could hear the smile in the other man’s voice.

  
'Would you bring me any crates from last week’s salvage? I'll find what I need.'

  
'If yer after the good whiskey, you ain't going to find it in there,' James needled.

  
'I'm not leaving good whiskey anywhere you can find it, James. Fuck, I wouldn't even leave the cheap shit out for you.'

 

'Ha! Ya swine!' James cackled amusedly. 'I'll have one of the lads bring the crates for ya right away.'

  
'Thanks,' Brutus shook his head and smiled as he hung up. Despite many often only seeing or even hearing them taunting each other, Brutus was happy to call James a friend aboard the airship. Although it was unwise to get them on opposing sides in a pub brawl, or even the same side for that matter. Previous encounters of that nature had given ample and painful proof of that.

  
Within thirty minutes Brutus heard the bulkhead door open and the sounds of a heavy cart being wheeled up to it. A young man stepped through and walked towards Brutus holding a clipboard, looking slightly edgy as most of the younger ones did. It was unnecessary. As long as they did what they were told, didn’t go wasting his time or go fiddling with anything on the ship in an attempt to “improve” things, Brutus wasn’t a difficult man to work with or learn from.

  
'Uh, C-chief?' he stammered nervously, shifting on his feet as Brutus stared at him, smoking his pipe. 'Uh, you, um,' Brutus exhaled a plume a smoke as he raised a single brow at the lad. 'You uh, requested the crates from last week’s salvage?'

  
'Yes.' He answered simply, not breaking eye contact as he was handed the board.

  
'Um, sign here, please?' Brutus slowly looked down at the paper on the board, it was simple confirmation slip that he needed to check and confirm the list of crates. Everything he requested was there but he allowed himself a small frown in order to test the lad’s seemingly fraying nerves before finally signing off the paperwork and handing it back.

  
'Bring the crates to my workbench,' he ordered before turning to check the pressure gauges. As the young lad walked back and forth through engineering, moving the crates, he played on Brutus' patience by often nearly tripping on a lump of coal or bumping into a Stoker. 'More coal for boiler two!' Brutus called out, sighing at the young lad as he dropped the last crate. 'Stupid boy,' he chastised in his thick Russian accent, annoyed at the clumsy behaviour. 'The parts in there are extremely valuable and worth more than you make. Now watch where you're going and finish up.' Quickly the lad picked up the crate and moved it to Brutus' work bench before leaving at a hurried pace.

  
Once Brutus was happy with the pressure in the boiler, he returned to his bench and began opening up the crates. Each item he pulled out was cross referenced with the droid, cables, skeleton parts, even bearings but it was when he was digging through a box of eyes he hit a problem: there wasn’t a matching green for the remaining one in the droid’s head. Putting functionality before aesthetics as always, he plucked out a sapphire blue eye that appeared to have suffered no damage from the amount of time it had been left sitting in the ruin and inspected it. It was the best out of the bunch and would have to do. After taking an inventory of the crates he came to the conclusion that three were dedicated as spare parts for this one particular droid, the rest were filled with everything from tools, paperwork and raw materials, the last three possibly also being able to give an inkling about what exactly the facility had been doing before it got destroyed.

  
Over the course of three months Brutus had taken what time he could reasonably spare to fix the droid. First came its bearings; a simple task for him to undertake and with them repaired he could put the left arm back into its place. Next came its eye, a task that was more difficult given its intricate wiring. Brutus had grumbled and cursed his way through the delicate task until its completion. Last were its heavily damaged power cells, a mammoth undertaking when compared to the other repairs. Brutus had spent an entire night removing the spine and head in one section to reach the cells. Random sparks would often fly out as he was removing the cells, forcing him to have extra care.

  
'Still got some juice, hmm?' he muttered to himself, wondering if there was an auxiliary supply of power. Once he spotted the damaged heart mechanism, still slowly ticking and clearly struggling to keep turning, he was almost certain there had to be something else keeping the system alive in this droid. 'Now why would someone fit you with that?' he asked the unconscious robot, perplexed at the complexity of the droid’s inner workings, before carefully removing the heart and immediately replacing the bent cogs. It was remarkably advanced for its year of creation but also incredibly simple for an engineer of Brutus' skill to repair. The heart itself he managed to restore and put back in within an hour.

  
Once everything was in place Brutus watched as the flesh that covered the droid seemed to heal itself up the moment the new power cells began feeding energy to the machine once more. He left the droid connected to the small charge port he had built though, there was enough power running through it to get it 'ticking over' but it was in desperate need of a charge and Brutus was happy to leave the droid charging under a dust sheet on his workbench for now. Some of the notes from one of the crates they had recovered had lent some insight into the droid’s charging habits, revealing it would remain inactive while charging.

  
The next night, after his shift, Brutus returned to the droid and carefully removed the charge line. He listened carefully for the sounds of any power up or turning machinery but the room remained silent. Or as silent as it could, given the machinery. Turning from the work station, Brutus picked up his notes, checking over everything he had marked down and ensuring there was nothing he missed. A faint rustling filtered through the room above the dim hum, buzz and hiss of other machines, followed by the sound of a sheet hitting the floor. Turning faster than a man of his sturdy build would appear capable of at first glance, Brutus’ piston arm shot out and grabbed the incoming droid by the throat, ignoring the sound of its voice box shattering from the impact. That had been a bit too close. Even so... 'I don't think so,' he spoke calmly and pinned the attacking droid to his workbench. Though he had no issue holding the droid down, the flailing made it difficult for him to place the charge line back into place. The moment the line was reconnected the droid quietened down before re-entering its inactive mode.

  
Brutus left nothing to chance this time. He grabbed several large chains from under his workbench and began setting to work on securing the droid before starting repairs on its voice box, all the while muttering about crazy robots.


End file.
